


Steadier Footing

by Bergmite



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-26 17:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7583944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bergmite/pseuds/Bergmite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looking back on it now, Lance reasoned that of all the people to accidentally fall asleep with, Keith was maybe 23rd on the list. So, not that high up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Basically a story about Keith and Lance sleeping together a bunch and developing feelings for each other! This is my first fic so feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading :)

When it started, it was an accident. Totally unintentional. 

After a long mission to save the planet of Anthe, Lance was leaning on Keith’s shoulder, complaining of a twisted ankle, as they slowly ambled towards the living quarters. Everyone was exhausted after the long fight and confusing diplomacy rituals. Apparently the alien people they were saving weren’t super keen on the idea of being liberated, but thems the breaks. 

The two paladins were struggling to stay on their feet as they followed the rest of the team. Night and day cycles always got mixed up in their travels across the galaxy, but at that moment, everyone was ready for bed. 

——

Looking back on it now, Lance reasoned that of all the people to accidentally fall asleep with, Keith was maybe 23rd on the list. So, not that high up. He tried to maintain even breathing as he looked down at Keith asleep beside him. They were facing each other in what appeared to be Keith’s bed. Lance groggily tried to remember why exactly he wasn’t in his own room down the hall. 

But any attempts at remembering were thwarted when he noticed Keith’s faint smattering of freckles, his long dark eyelashes, his mussed hair. In the faint light he could see the relaxed rise and fall of Keith’s chest as he breathed, soundly asleep. They were both in their under-armor, their legs entwined. He was almost offended at how pretty Keith looked.

In all the thrill and excitement becoming part of team Voltron, he’d forgotten how much he’d missed this sort of comfortable mundanity, offset by wonderment. To be close to someone, half awake and half asleep. This warm and pleasant feeling, it was different than when Lance was a kid with his siblings. Still, it reminded him of home. This intimacy and trust, it was too quiet and dreamy to question.

The initial confusion and surprise of waking up next to Keith had worn off, replaced by a muzzy feeling. Lance’s eyelids became heavy again. 

Just then Keith awoke to see Lance blinking at him sleepily.

“Whoa, hey dude. What are you doing in my bed?” Keith said as he tried to will the sleepiness out of his head. “Didn’t want to sleep alone? Poor guy.” He paused and looked around. “No really, what happened?”

“Wow, yeah no, um, the main problem with the premise of your question is… uh, shut up?” Lance sputtered back. 

“Don’t tell me to shut up when you’re in bed with me!” 

“It’s not my fault! Last night we were… probably too tired to realize.” Lance was sitting up now, rubbing his eyes. “Anyways, it was a mistake, won’t happen again.”

“Uh-huh, and it’s a mistake that you were practically cuddling me the whole time?”

“Wh- I was not! In your dreams, apparently.” Lance felt his face get hot. Keith just smiled.

“Hey, no worries. We can chalk this up to another bonding activity or something.” 

Lance couldn't understand how Keith found this whole situation amusing. He moved to get out of bed.

“Okay, Sounds good. This concludes our late night bonding session. Bye!” With that, Lance sped out of the room and down the hall to his own quarters. 

Lance muttered a what the heck and fell face first onto his own bed. He immediately noticed how cold it was compared to Keith’s. At least that would get rid of the flush on his cheeks. 

His relationship with Keith had always been… weird. Ever since Keith denied the whole rival thing, Lance didn’t know what to think. But they made a good team, when they weren't deliberately antagonizing each other. And in another life, Lance could see them being… friends? 

_Ugh geez_ … Lance hoped this little faux pas didn’t ruin what fragile trust and understanding they had. _This doesn’t have to mean anything_ he thought. _Just pretend it never happened._

A knock at the door interrupted his train of thought.

“Yeah?” Lance replied from his place on the bed. Keith opened the door.

“Hey, you left your armor in my room.” Keith dumped said armor on top of Lance’s prone form.

“Wow thanks” Lance mumbled back. Out of the corner of his eye he looked past Keith and saw a blur of green just outside his door. He was up in an instant.

“Pidge, it’s not what it looks like!” Too late, Pidge turned the corner and ran off in a fit of muffled laughter. 

Lance groaned and turned to Keith.

“You see what you did? They’re still so young and impressionable. What if they tell the others?”

“Tell them what? What’s the big deal?” 

Lance’s embarrassment made his voice speed up.

“Um, unlike you, I have a reputation to maintain. And since our span of regular human interaction is limited to six people, the whole system is pretty delicate.” He held up six fingers. 

“What if the others think we’re… you know, together?” 

“So what? We’re pretty much together all the time, anyway. Like you said, only six people.”

“How can you be so nonchalant? Are you stupid or are you just that unperturbable?”

“Unperturbable? Is that a word?” Keith seemed so sincere. 

“Ugh… oh my god…” Lance covered his blushing face with his hands. Maybe Pidge wouldn’t make the connection of Lance’s armor being in Keith’s room to them sleeping together. Lance could only hope. 

——

Even if the others didn't found out, he wasn’t going to recover from this. 

When he looked at Keith, it was different from before. Lance used to just see his dumb weird mullet, his judging eyes. Now he saw Keith’s soft freckles, his attentive stare. He remembered the Garrison. He remembered why he wanted to be rivals with Keith so bad.

The following day the team made adjustments to their lions and armor to prepare for the next mission. 

“The planet we’re visiting next is infamous for its extreme weather conditions” Allura announced at the midday meeting. She pulled up a large planet called Rom on the holographic map. Storms circled the planet endlessly. “Since the Galra empire has taken control, the planet is mostly abandoned.”

“Mostly?” Hunk spoke up. 

“Yes. Our sensors have picked up a distress beacon on one of the planet’s steepest frozen mountains. It seems the native survivors of Rom took shelter there during the Galra’s acquisition not long ago, and now they are stuck in the treacherous terrain.” 

“So it’s a simple rescue mission,” Coran added. “The Galran ships and cruisers might not be able to reach this spot in the mountain, but with a little tricky maneuvering, the red lion can. Red is the fastest out of the bunch, and it’s fire powers should come in handy too.”

“Keith, you’re our best bet to save the last few people of Rom. The rest of us will hang back and provide support if you run into trouble.” Allura placed her hand on Keith’s shoulder as she said this, and Lance rolled his eyes. Keith looked unafraid.

“I won’t let you down.” 

——


	2. Chapter 2

Once they were on the way to the planet Rom, Lance expected to see something out of an Antarctic nature documentary narrated by David Attenborough. But there were no cute penguins on this planet. The surface was invisible, covered by a dense white fog. Ragged shards of ice and rock jutted out of the clouds and dared to touch the gray sky above. Rom was a mess of sharp lines and dull colors. Seems like something Keith would like, Lance thought to himself. 

Allura explained that even though the planet and the surrounding area was abandoned, Galran forces still might be near to protect what they had stolen. So the other paladins stayed back in the castle, ready to deploy if necessary.

“What kind of lifeforms lived on a planet like this?” Pidge, ever curious, broke the silence as they all watched Keith’s red lion descend from orbit.

“You’d be surprised,” Coran was happy to answer. “The people of Rom are autotrophs capable of photosynthesis. They were an intelligent race, but apathetic and cold-hearted. Um, no pun intended… When the Galrans first came to conquer and plunder and all that, the Romlings tried to set up a partnership instead. After much fighting and negotiating…”

Lance tuned out Coran’s history lesson in favor of watching Keith maneuver his lion deftly through the mountain peaks. 

Keith approached the source of the distress beacon. His red lion inched closer to the pink flashing light stuck in the side of the mountain. 

Something didn’t look right.

“Wait, where are the aliens we’re supposed to be saving?” Lance saw that the others were to absorbed in Coran’s story to here him. It was probably fine. They were probably hidden in the mountain or something. Lance paused again just long enough to here another one of Coran’s ice puns. 

When his eyes turned back to the monitor, back to Keith, he saw fireworks.

And suddenly his feet were flying, and he heard something but he didn’t listen, and he was running down the corridor. Something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what. All he knew was that he had to help Keith. The wheels in his brain moved slowly in favor of a faster pace on the path in front of him. Everything caught up when he reached his lion. Those weren’t fireworks. It had been a trap. An explosion had buried Keith’s lion under huge chunks of ice, rock, and snow. 

“Keith! Do you read me? Are you okay?” Lance was in his lion now, taking off from the hangar as he tried to reach Keith over the comm. Shiro popped up instead.

“Lance! What are you doing?” Shiro sounded frantic, his voice rough over the speakers.

“Keith needs help, I’m going down there. Didn’t you guys see that explosion?”

“Yes, but Lance, you can’t just go off on your own—“

“And whose brilliant idea was it to have Keith go down there by himself? We should have known this would be a trap!” 

“Lance, we’re on our way, just hold on! The atmosphere— 

Shiro was cut out with a crash. The blue lion flew, or maybe fell, through the mountain peaks faster and faster. Lance’s surroundings went white as he cut through the clouds. Another crash. The mountains seemed to spring up out of nowhere. 

“Hang in there, Blue. We have to help Keith.” Lance tried his comm again to no avail. The air was thick with snow and he was forced to slow down. 

Lance frantically tried every sensor, communicator, signal, and radar he could think of. He had to find Keith. And just falling in the same direction wasn't cutting it. 

And then he saw it. A blip on the screen. He chased after it, bouncing off the sides of icy mountains. He descended further into the milky cloud cover until he saw it. Keith’s lion was buried under chunks of ice and rock, wedged in the valley of two steep mountains. The light in its eyes had gone out. 

Lance let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Guys! I found Keith. I think his lion is pretty badly damaged.” Lance was answered with static. Unforgiving static.

Lance resisted the urge to punch the control panel. His heart thumped loudly in his chest as he approached the red lion closer and closer. He searched for a sign that Keith was okay. At least the head of his lion was still somewhat accessible. Lance positioned the blue lion as close as possible. He took a deep breath. 

“Okay, here goes…” Lance exited his lion and was immediately hit with the extreme cold. His breath fogged up the screen of his helmet. He willed his body to move and slid on the ice below his feet. It was only a few meters down the steep mountainside to Keith. 

The red lion struggled to open for him. Its jaw had been damaged in the fall. Lance was just barely able to make his way to the cockpit, where he found Keith drifting in and out of consciousness. Lance winced as he assessed the damage.

“Keith, hey. Can you here me?” Lance got a strangled groan for an answer.

Keith’s armor had helped, but he was still pretty banged up. A bloody nose was the most obvious injury, but there were likely bruises forming underneath the skin. 

“C’mon buddy, we have to get out of here.” Lance put on a brave face. He pulled Keith’s arm over his shoulder and heard a crack, followed by a string of colorful obscenities. 

“Okay, that might be broken.” Lance set Keith’s arm down gingerly and opted to carry him bridal style. He made for the exit. 

Keith’s eyes were closed and his brow was knit. The visor screen of his helmet had cracked and fallen off, leaving his lips blue and his breath forming clouds in the cold. He was shivering and muttering something in another language.

“Don’t worry, man. You’re okay, Everything’s fine. Everything’s copacetic.” Lance repeated this to himself out loud over and over. Keith lay half unconscious in his arms. They reached the blue lion and climbed inside. 

It was clear that Keith couldn’t stand on his own, and seating was limited in the blue lion’s cockpit. Lance sat in his chair and stammered out an _aw geez dude_ and a _what-the-fuck-ever_ as he struggled to position Keith on his lap. 

“You’re not making this easy for me, man” Lance complained as he readied the lion for flight. “Okay, okay. Here we go. Ready? Stay with me.” Lance strained his neck to look Keith in the eyes.

“Lance…” Keith was halfway falling out of Lance’s lap. He gripped the other boy’s arm for support. He must have had a concussion or something. 

The blue lion roared as it took off through the fog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
